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Excavaciones en Macedonia; Pella, Vergina - Aigai

Publicado en Grecia el 13 de Febrero, 2006, 10:22 por terraeantiqvae

Pella

Historical evidence relating to Pella, the capital of ancient Macedonia, is limited in extent. This capital of the greatest power in Greece throughout the entire Hellenistic period, can only be delineated by means of archaeological excavation. The results of the long-term, systematic excavations provide a picture of a large, wealthy, superbly organised city, in which the concepts of the grand-scale and the monumental were predominant.

History

Pella was not the first capital of the Macedonian kingdom. Perdikkas, the inaugurator of the royal dynasty of the Argeadai, set out from the mountains of Upper Macedonia and settled in the southern part of the fertile plain of Central Macedonia, in the foothills of the Pierian mountains, near the river Haliakmon. Here, about the middle of the 7th c. BC, was founded Aigai as capital.
Some centuries later, when Macedonia began to emerge from her isolation on to the stage of history, strategic considerations dictated a change of the site for the capital. It was the king Archelaos (413-399 BC), son of Perdikkas II and a major political figure, who probably saw the necessity to transfer the capital. He select the hitherto insignificant township of Pella on the north coast of the Thermaic gulf. The site of the new capital near the sea and in the easternmost part of the kingdom was of decisive importance with regard to the later Macedonian expansion to the east.

Palace

Archelaos
Archelaos was one of the most important personalities in Macedonian history. A great innovator, he not only transferred his capital, but also oversaw the reform of the administration of the kingdom and the reorganisation of the army and the fleet. During his reign, a period of peace and creativity, Macedonia enjoyed great prosperity. Archelaos was careful to cultivate peaceful relations with the Greeks in the south and invited to his court major intellectual and artistic figures. Amongst them the tragedians Euripides and Agathon, the painter Zeuxis, the musician Timotheos, the epic poet Choirilos and others. According to tradition, Euripides spent the last years of his life at the court of Archelaos, where he wrote the tragedies Archelaos, which has not survived, and the Bacchae, one of his most important plays. Archelaos built a majestic palace at Pella which was decorated by Zeuxis, the greatest painter of the age (Aelian, Varia Historia XIV, 17).

Mosaic decoration,
griffin tearing apart a deer, 312-300 BC

Philip II and Alexander the Great
The violent death of Archelaos interrupted the development of the state. His work was continued, after an interval of some decades, by Philip II (360-336 BC). Philip's efforts were not confined solely to the internal development, but were directed mainly to the expansion of Macedonian political power. During these years Pella reached the summit of her prosperity. It became the "greatest of the cities in Macedonia" (Xenophon, Hellenika V, 2, 13).

Alexander, grown up in Pella

Its fame was spread throughout the entire known world by the conquests of Alexander the Great (336-323 BC). After Alexander's death, incessant disputes broke out between his successors, each of whom aimed at establishing himself on the Macedonian throne. These disputes only ended after many decades, with the ascent to the throne of Antigonos Gonatas (276-239 BC). Antigonos' descendants ruled the country wisely. The Macedonian capital at this period was not only a powerful political centre that determined the fortunes of Greece, but at the same time an intellectual and artistic centre.

The Romans
After the conquest of Macedonia by the Romans, following the defeat of the last Macedonian king, Perseus, at Pydna in 168 BC, Pella was converted into a provincial Roman city, while Thessaloniki became the capital of the large Roman province. Pella continued to exist and produce for a few more decades, but vanished from the stage of history in the early years of the lst c. BC, probably destroyed by earthquake. A century later, historical sources refer to a mass of ruins covering the area where the once powerful, brilliant capital had flourished.

Literature
The first mention of the name of Pella is by the historian Herodotus (VII, 123), who states: "..The voyage (of the fleet of Xerxes) ended at Therma, the place appointed, and the towns of Sindus and Chalestra, where it came to the river Axius; this is the boundary, between the Mygdonian and the Bottiaean territory, wherein stand the towns of Ichnae and Pella on the narrow strip of sea coast". The two cities, Ichnae and Pella, were in a steinon chorion, a narrow strip of land by the sea.
Alluvial deposits led to the silting up of the sea, with the result that today Pella is no longer the coastal city it was in antiquity, but is about 30 kilometres inland. The deposits carried by these rivers gradually created extensive marshes around Pella, leading to a deterioration in its climate, to which allusion is made at least in the last years of the city's life as capital.
Another feature of the region are the large, thick forests that covered the entire surrounding area. It was this striking, mysterious landscape, with its dense forests and marshes, that inspired Euripides to write his tragedy the Bacchae. The site of the mentioned by Herodotus seems, from archaeological indications, to be in the area of the modern irrigation canal. The choice of site for the new city was a highly successful one. Built in an open area and on level terrain that sloped upwards slightly to the north, where it ended in a low hill, the city had the best possible orientation, facing south. This was of great importance, when the major source of heating was the sun. The hill to the north, moreover, was an ideal site to house the central authority.
The historian Livy (XLIV 46, 4-11) gives interesting information on the site of the city. When Aemilius Paulus, the conqueror of Perseus at the battle of Pydna, reached Pella, he encamped outside the city before entering it. There he expressed his admiration for the ideal site occupied by the city, which was encircled by a stout fortification wall. To the South of it, in the direction of the sea, was a small elevation in the land, known as the Phakos so called from its lentoid shape (phaki in greek), which was fortified by a wall. The city communicated with the Phakas by means of a bridge. According to Livy (XLIV 6, 1-2), the royal treasury was located on the Phakos.

Excavations
The city had lain covered by earth and in oblivion for two millennia when it was brought to light by the archaeologist's spade. After the liberation of Macedonia in 1912, one of the first concerns of the Greek state was to uncover the old, brilliant capital.
The excavations commenced in 1914, but were suspended after two seasons on account of the First World War. At this time part of a late Hellenistic house was discovered, with a subterranean cistern and a few, though important portable finds.
A chance event once more brought to light the ruins of the brilliant capital in the spring of 1957. A series of Ionic column drums were discovered during the construction of the ground floor of a small building in the modern settlement. This find was of great importance and led to the beginning of systematic excavations. Large-scale excavations were conducted from 1957 to 1963, at first under Professor Ph. Petsas, and later under the direction of the late Ch. Makaronas, with the unstinting support of the state, through the then prime minister K. Karamanlis.

From: Maria Siganidou and Maria Lilimpaki-Akamati, Pella, Capital of Macedonians (Ministry of Culture), Athens 1997.
Photos: Fokko Dijkstra

Editor(s): fd
Latest revision: 18. May 2004 11:43

Fuente: http://www.chain.to/index.php?did=105&sort=b&subject=view_article&id=2399

Vergina - Aigai

Excavations at Vergina, have revolutionized Macedonian archaeology since the 1970s. A series of chamber tombs, unearthed here by Professor Manolis Andronikos (1919-92), are now unequivocally accepted as those of Philip II and other members of the Macedonian royal family. This means that the site itself must be that of Aigai, the original Macedonian royal capital before the shift to Pella, and later its necropolis. Finds from the site and tombs, the richest Greek trove since the discovery of Mycenae, are exhibited on the spot. The main tombs are displayed in situ; visitors walk down narrow underground passages into a climate-controlled bunker which allows them to see the ornamental facades and the empty chambers beyond. Overhead the earth of the tumulus has been replaced.

The site
Ancient Aigai is documented as the sanctuary and royal burial place of the Macedonian kings. It was here that PhiIip II was assassinated and buried - and tradition maintained that the dynasty would be destroyed if any king were buried elsewhere. As indeed happened after the death of AIexander the Great in Asia. Until Andronikos's finds in November 1977 - the culmination of decades of work on the site - Aigai had long been assumed to be lost beneath modern Edhessa, a theory now completely discarded.

What Andronikos discovered, under a tumulus just outside modern Vergina, were several large and indisputably Macedonian chamber tombs, identified as the Royal Tombs. From outside, all that's visible is a low hillock with skylights and long ramps leading inside, but once underground the facades and doorways of the several tombs are well illuminated, behind glass.

You're meant to tour the four tombs in the order IV-I-II-III. Tomb IV, the so-called 'Doric', was looted in antiquity; so too was Tomb I, that of 'Persephone', but it retained a delicate and exquisitely crafted mural of the rape of Persephone by Hades, the only complete example of an ancient Greek painting that has yet been found.

Tomb II, confidently identified as that of Philip II, is a much grander vaulted tomb with a Doric facade adorned by a sumptuous painted frieze of Philip, Alexander and their retinue on a lion hunt. This - incredibly - was intact, having been deliberately disguised with rubble from later tomb pillagings.

Among the treasures to emerge - now displayed in the dimly lit but well-labelled hall here - were a marble sarcophagus containing a gold larnax or ossuary, its cover embossed with the exploding, eight-point-star symbol of the royal line on its lid, a symbol now harnessed irrevocably to the Greek-nationalist juggernaut. Still more significantly, five small ivory heads were found, among them representations of both Philip II and Alexander. It was this clue, as well as the fact that the skull bore marks of a disfiguring facial wound Philip was known to have sustained, that led to the identification of the tomb as his.

Also on view is the famous gold oak-leaf wreath, and a more modest companion larnax found in the antechamber, presumed to contain the carefully wrapped bones and ashes of a legitimate queen or concubine.

Text from: The Rough Guide to Greece
Photos: Fokko Dijkstra

Editor(s): fd
Latest revision: 18. May 2004 11:43

Fuente: http://www.chain.to/index.php?did=90&sort=m&subject=view_article&id=2397